Tuesday 22 December 2009

9.x Reporting Patch



A patch for OpenInsight 9.1.0 and 9.1.1 has recently been made available to correct a problem with the list command and landscape reports. It resolves an issue that can occur if the definition of the report is too wide for printing in landscape. The patch prevents the list command from going into a loop and crashing the OpenInsight engine on certain landscape reports.

For more information please visit the WORKS download page on http://www.revelation.com/for the patch.

If you are not a Works member please contact your local Revelation representative who will be happy to discuss the WORKS program with you.

9.1 and 9.1.1 reporting patch

A patch for OpenInsight 9.1.0 and 9.1.1 has recently been made available to correct a problem with the list command and landscape reports. It resolves an issue that can occur if the definition of the report is too wide for printing in landscape. The patch prevents the list command from going into a loop and crashing the OpenInsight engine on certain landscape reports.

For more information please visit the works download page for the patch.

If you are not a Works member please contact your local Revelation representative who will be happy to discuss the WORKS program with you.

Thursday 17 December 2009

In Development



Those of you that have attended one of the recent RUG meetings will have seen an early look at O4W - Revelation's new web technology.

Development on O4W is just about complete and Revelation will begin beta testing shortly. The technology is already in use internally and it is running the US eStore, Evaluation Request, and Upgrade Request processes.

In addition the SQL Connector (also previewed at the RUG meetings) continues to be improved and Revelation have also started development on OpenInsight for D3. This connector will allow OpenInsight to be a front end application development tool with the D3 database from TIGER LOGIC.

I will cover these new technologies in more detail early in the New Year.

Wednesday 16 December 2009

www.revsoft.co.uk – rebuild



As many of you know, I will be ‘officially’ finishing up on Friday for the seasonal holiday and I do not plan to be back at my desk until Monday 4th January. However, I will be monitoring email throughout this period and I can be reached as usual on my mobile during UK office hours.

However, it will not all be leisure, mince pies and the odd bottle of beer. During the holiday period I am planning on rebuilding the RevSoft UK web site. The look will remain similar, but the content will be greatly changed in order to be more W3C compliant, optimised for the search engines and to be much more standards based.

I have some analytical software running on the site and this shall be consulted when deciding what goes and what stays. There have been a number of areas that our VARs had requested, but which get few or no hits. In addition, much of the developers area content is now readily available in the OI help files (error codes), the WORKS CD and elsewhere. On the flip side, some areas gain a lot of hits and could benefit from being more concise or informative.

This posting is therefore to ask any of you that want specific areas of the site to stay, to make your requests know to me over the next few days. There will obviously be an opportunity to add back content at a later date, but I’d like to include anything that you need in the first draft if at all possible.

Thanks,
M.

Monday 7 December 2009

Did you know - Background Gradients.



Back in March, I wrote about the new background gradient feature for OpenInsight forms. These enable you to instantly change the look and feel of your OpenInsight application by setting window gradients for the background colour and style of a window, or set a default that runs throughout your application.

These gradients can be set programmatically using the GRADIENTSTYLE and BACKCOLOR properties of a window. In addition, they can be set in the Form Designer by opening the Windows Properties dialog and clicking on the Gradient button located on the right hand side of the dialog box.

However, since that first report, the features has been enhanced to include a drop down list of available Gradient Types on the Gradient Definition dialog box. The list of available types has been extended and now includes: "None", "Vertical", "Horizontal", "Ellipse", "Pyramid" and "Mountain".

When a type other than "None" is selected, the "Grade To Color..." button is enabled. Clicking the button will display the Choosecolor dialog box. Once the Grade to Colour is set, click the OK button. The settings will be stored on the OpenInsight form.

Thursday 3 December 2009

SRP Editor Update, Version 2.3.3



Those of you who use SRP’s System Editor will be interested to know that a new version has recently been released. This new version addresses a small issue where a variable is not assigned under certain conditions – namely, when attempting to close a record with unsaved changes, whilst the ‘Window -> Close All’ menu option was selected.

More details, a hot tip for the SRP Editor and a link to the download can be found by clicking here.

Wednesday 2 December 2009

From the desk of Bill Caisley



When you create an RDK deployment it creates a row called %RUN% in the SYSUPGRADE table which contains $RDKMODULEINSTALL from SYSPROG. This program has changed from version to version and the source that is issued with an upgrade is NOT the Source for the live Object but merely an example if you wish to create your own custom RDKMODULEINSTALL.

What happens if you run an RDKInstall is that the object from %RUN% is copied into SYSOBJ and then it is run. A problem can occur if an RDKInstall fails because of an OI version change that will leave the incorrect version of $RDKMODULEINSTALL in SYSOBJ.

You will have to copy a ‘clean’ $RDKMODULEINSTALL into your working copy of OI so that any future RDK deployments contain the correct version in %RUN%.

Tuesday 1 December 2009

OpenInsight version 9.1.1 released!!



Overnight Revelation released the latest version of the OpenInsight application development suite – Version 9.1.1. For those of you who decline to install the first major release, waiting for the first patch, then now is the time to take a look at 9.1 and what it has to offer for developers and users.

The new version is available from the WORKS area on http://www.revelation.com/ and it should be noted that it can only be applied to a pre-installed version 9.1 installation. As usual, you will require an authorisation key form Revelation using the form linked from the 9.1.1 download page.

Some of the enhancements in 9.1.1 include a new .NET version of IDX_SETS to address some performance issues whilst running ARev32 or CTO applications. In addition, RWREPORT has been fixed to display when printing to the screen.

Other enhancements sees the ability to use a key value for from fields added into the Database Manager’s Add Relation Index window. Using DELETE from TCL whilst defining a specific key will now delete that entity, rather than the last active list and the Command Stack can now be user based.

There have been three key enhancements to the System Editor ++, including the addition of an option to search inherited applications, a cancel option for users running a global find and replace search and an issue with Cascaded/Tiled stored procedure code windows no redrawing correctly has been resolved.

A Savewarn message has been added into the Table Builder’s Calculated Column Edit window and a list handling error when adding and removing QuickDexes and RightDexes has been resolved.

OIPI.NET/OIPI sees three issues resolved. Creating files using LIST or RUN_REPORT will now preview, CSV files can now be created and ADDTABLE message results are now justified. On the subject of reporting, the Banded Report Writer sees a fix to the Calc button, which was not working.

Within the Client Server Workspace, Options buttons have been added to the XO_CHILD and DS_CHILD windows, so that users no longer have to remember to double-click to see the window’s options.

The RDK sees one fix that now allows Buildexe to default to designation and data paths.

Finally, scrollbars have been added to the DotNetExplorer window EditTables and a missing program within RTI_GetNetworkUserName has been added back into the system.

It is nice to see that a few of these fixes came from client requests at the recent RUG meetings and I hope that you all find the 9.x releases more enjoyable to work with and, more importantly, help to make you more productive.

Monday 23 November 2009

TCL – Limiting commands by user



Revelation are gearing up for the release of 9.1.1 shortly and part of this upgrade will be a request made at the recent EMEA RUG meeting in London.

Changes have been made to TCL in the new version. These enhancements will enable developers to limit certain commands so that they can not be run by a particular user. For example, you will be able to expose TCL to your users and at the same time you could restrict access to the CLEARFILE command.

This neat change to TCL will enable users to make better use of TCL, without the application author having to worry about the integrity of the system being compromised in any way.

Thursday 12 November 2009

Revelation User's Conference 2010



Revelation Software is pleased to announce that our keynote speaker for our 2010 Conference is THOMAS J WILSON, president and CEO of Unisphere Media which publishes DATABASE TRENDS AND APPLICATIONS. Tom's keynote presentation is titled "Ten Trends Shaping Information Management in 2010".

Our 2010 Users' Conference will be held at the Rio All-Suite Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada on Tuesday, April 27th - Friday, April 30th, 2010.

Please drop me a line if you would like more details about this main Revelation event.

Wednesday 11 November 2009

Hardening OI Directory File permissions



Several of you have recently asked for details about ‘Hardening File permissions on the OpenInsight Directory’. I am pleased to announce the publication of a comprehensive knowledge base article that details this topic.

Locking down file level permissions on the OpenInsight directory is an important step to ensuring the stability of your application. Improper permissions can allow users to change or delete files - accidentally or intentionally. The ‘Hardening File permissions on the OpenInsight Directory’ Knowledge Base article provides guidelines to secure your OpenInsight directory.

Examples of securing the application at the share level and file level are provided within the article. Each example begins with the creation of the destination directory followed by installing OpenInsight into the newly created location. Establishing the destination directory permissions before installation ensures that the administrator installing the application will have rights to modify it later.

Tuesday 10 November 2009

RSS feeds on www.revelation.com



The US web site has maintained a number of RSS feeds for sometime, but they have been largely under utilised. This was primarily owing to a login being required to retrieve the feed and, as many RSS readers do not support authentication, this resulted in the feeds being somewhat difficult to access through people’s preferred RSS reader.

Earlier this year, Jared took a look at this issue and he has made changes to the feeds so that they can now be retrieved without the need to login, although a login is still required to view the message content.

At the present time there are feeds for ‘News and Information’, the ‘Online Discussion Forum’ and the ‘OpenInsight WORKS Discussion forum’.

Please also remember to include the RSS feeds for this blog’s posts and comments.

Monday 9 November 2009

Troubleshooting REAUTH.EXE & NETDRV.EXE



As many people cross-grade existing ARev and OpenInsight systems to version 9.x and deploy new systems on the new version, we have had a few support questions posted with regards to using the REAUTH.EXE file and also NETDRV.EXE.

Both of these files require single user access to key OpenInsight files and, in addition, the renaming or installation of a new OENGINE.DLL file also requires single user access.

Key files can remain locked when a user leaves OpenInsight open on a workstation, and this results in error messages when the above files are utilised. Furthermore, if errors occur but everyone is out of the system, the issue can usually be traced to a hung engine that is still running in memory.

Revelation US have written a very useful article that covers some common steps and includes a utility to resolve the issue of locked files. Please click here to access the article.

Friday 6 November 2009

From the desk of Bill Caisley



There are a few instances reported that if utilising ARev tables in OI ‘I have to maintain my indexes in ARev, OI does not work!’

If you are using/attaching legacy tables from ARev in OI and there is a Quickdex.mfs on the DICT. you are unable to create a Btree on any of the fields. It will appear to have worked but the index will not exist and it will not work. If you attempt to re-add the index you will receive a message that the ‘index already exists’. What has happened is that the DICT. now has a one (1) in field six which indicates the existence of a Btree on that field.

Revelation are going to produce a meaningful error message in a future release to warn you of this problem.

To successfully maintain indexes from OI you must first remove the Quickdex.mfs from the DICT. by means of a SET_MFS. You should also edit the row in the Dict and remove the one (1) in field 6 if you previously attempted to create an index.

Please also note that Sprezzatura have begun a blog thread regarding ‘Indexing in OpenInsight – Part 1 –What is indexing?

Monday 2 November 2009

EMEA RUG update



Last weeks events went very well and whilst the I18N meeting was easy to write about, I’ve only just managed to find a few minutes to get some words down about the RUG. To say that the RUG caused a lot of interest in version 9.1, would be understatement.

The theme of the RUG was primarily OpenInsight version 9.x and, as usual, Mike Ruane took the floor following the usual introductions from around a rather over packed room.

Mike started with an overview of how Revelation has been doing since his last visit, he spoke about some new additions to the team in the USA and how the product has changed over recent releases. Following a short break, he then ran through each of the OpenInsight tools highlighting the key enhancements, many (but not all) are highlighted on my 9.x video. Amongst those enhancements, the edit table enhancements proved to be one of the most popular from the morning session, but many people picked up some very useful tips along the way – such as intercepting drops to the debugger in deployed systems, rather than letting the system appear to hang.

Following lunch, Mike turned to some of the exciting developments that Revelation are working on for 9.2 and later. The SQL-BFS received the most interest and resulted in a number of attendees asking to be included on the forthcoming beta and also wanting to know more about upgrading to 9.1 in readiness for the bond. Following a live demonstration against the Northwind database, people realised just how easy it will be to use the bond (without changing the application) to address the “I need your application to run on a SQL database” question when talking to new prospects looking to buy their OpenInsight systems, currently only running on OpenInsight’s Linear Hash.

As the afternoon drew to a close Mike finished with an overview of O4W, being Revelation’s latest web development tool. The difference with this one is that a fully featured web application can be created online and by largely simply making choices and defining labels. For instance, a form can be created in 9 super simple steps without touching a line of code! Furthermore, menus, pop-ups, online reports, searching, validation and more can all be created in minutes without the need to touch any code. Of course, there is the facility to create and call your own programs if necessary, but the vast majority of the work is done for you if you need a quick, easy to maintain web based application.

With the SQL-BFS and O4W alone, the forthcoming 9.x and version 10.x releases are looking like providing even more tools to make developers lives easier and the inclusion of more interface enhancements will make the end-user experience far better.

Before anyone asks, timescales for 9.2 are early to mid 2010, probably around conference time, but Mike could not promise anything. However, I’m hoping to have a very early ‘pre-beta release’ of the SQL-BFS and O4W around Christmas time, so make a note to contact me in early January if you would like to see more of these two exciting OpenInsight developments.

I then closed the meeting with the usual thank you and touched very briefly on my use of social networking and my changed views on the topic. This month alone we have welcomed ten new OpenInsight WORKS subscribers into the community, two of which came to us through online social networking. I’ll be blogging on this subject over the coming weeks as I refine my use and find more time saving methods of using the key resources, but please drop me an email if you would like to learn more and find out how you can begin to gain greater exposure and credibility in your market.

Wednesday 28 October 2009

Sprezzatura's Blogging Basic+ 1.7.0 update



Sprezzatura have released an upgrade to their free Basic+ Source Code Publisher that I featured in my 30th March blog posting. If you are publishing Basic+ source code to the Revelation forum or your own blog, then I’d strongly recommend Carl’s utility – click here for further details.

Monday 26 October 2009

I18N Round Table




Today saw the long awaited I18N (Internationalisation) meeting in Ealing. Revelation UK staff and Mike Ruane, over from the US, were joined by a handful of key developers from Europe involved and interested in better support for I18N within OpenInsight.

Following the usual introductions during which attendees highlighted their needs for I18N within OpenInsight, Mike touched on the position of OpenInsight when he took over the product and then the main I18N enhancements that Revelation have built into the product since version 4.1.3, through the 7.x series and into the recent enhancements in 9.x.

The day then followed a round table discussion format during which various topics were openly discussed. The idea was for Mike and Carl, to fully understand what our International clients need for enhanced I18N support in OpenInsight version 9.2, 10.0 and later.

Some of the topics discussed included; better support for UTF8 and possible future support for UTF16, collation sequences, LH4 to handle full UTF8 data, caching and performance implications following the necessary changes.

Collation sequences became a major topic of discussion and Mike showed how version 9.x can use Windows Collation. Attendees were invited to submit examples of their collation sequences to Mike.

Following a lengthy discussion, most of which was beyond my comprehension, the general consensus was that Revelation are almost there already, but that the proposed changes will address most of the things that our International clients need and that the enhancements should open up more doors and opportunities for us all.

I’ll not go as far as indicating what Revelation’s plans are following the meeting as it is too early and Mike has much to think about. However, the meeting generated five key areas to consider for 9.2 and certainly leaves the development team with a more clearly defined idea of what is needed for far better support for I18N in OpenInsight 9.2 and later.

Personally, I would like to thank Kerry Walter, Alexander Holliday, Stefano Cavaglieri, Neville Jones and Gary St Denis for taking time to meet with us and to contribute to this large and complex topic.

Wednesday 21 October 2009

RevSoftUK and Twitter




Well it is now official, I am a ‘Twit’terer!

I’ve had a Twitter account for a while, but never really got into the whole idea of using it in a business context – personally, I can think of nothing worse than spending a hour a day finding out what your contacts had for breakfast this morning, plan to do in their private time this evening or any of the other 'twatter' the service appears to generate.

In addition, finding time to maintain the blog, a couple of networking sites and Twitter was resulting in late evenings and an unwanted distraction.

However, I’ve had a slight change of thought recently and I’ve now begun adding Twitter’s ‘Tweet’ button to my blog postings and I have also begun to use Twitter for short information blasts with a Revelation topic. If you have a Twitter account, you can easily use the Tweet button to tweet the posting onwards to your followers. In addition, you can follow me (log into Twitter and search for mdp_revsoft) and receive small bite sized timely twitter postings about Revelation related topics – I won’t over burden you and I’ll be keeping my tweets on topic. In addition, my tweets will NOT be linked to or appearing on the blog, keeping the blog clean.

I’ll still be maintaining the blog as the main vehicle for technical information, news and other information coming from my desk. So please be sure to follow and/or subscribe to the blog.

Saturday 17 October 2009

9.x Quickdex and Rightdex patch




Revelation have recently announced the release of a patch to OpenInsight 9.0 and 9.1 to correct errors with Quickdexes and Rightdexes whereby duplicate keys are returned. If you're in the WORKS program you can get the update here.

However, if you are not a WORKS member please contact your local Revelation representative for further details about obtaining this patch.

Friday 16 October 2009

Precaution when installing OpenInsight 9.1




Version 9.1 of OpenInsight has seen some fairly major changes with regards to .NET support, the new OIPI.NET print engine and more. However, these enhancements have found it necessary to include a separate client install, as detailed within the OpenInsight installation and upgrade instructions. Special attention must be made to these documents when installing (or upgrading) OpenInsight to ensure a smooth upgrade and installation process.

An unforeseen scenario has come up a couple of times recently for people upgrading to version 9.x. Whilst this will be documented for 9.2, I thought it best to blog the issue here for anyone working with 9.x versions prior to the 9.2 release.

Although the upgrade instructions are being followed, the activation code is not being accepted and OpenInsight presents the user with an error reading ‘Invalid authorization code entered. Please re-enter’.

This is a generic error message that is presented whenever the authorisation code fails to register on the system. This could be due to the code being typed incorrectly, an additional (usually trailing) space being included during a copy and paste and if the code has already expired. In addition, this error is produced if the installer does not have sufficient rights to create the temporary file that is required for the upgrade.

During a review of this issue by Bill Caisley, he found that the error was occurring before you navigate to the OpenInsight directory where you wish to apply the upgrade. During the installation the setup routine creates a temporary file with information necessary to validate and update the engine with unique license information, etc. Further investigation proved that, even though he was logged as a member of the administrator group, a rights (permission) issue meant that the temporary file could not be created and the installation failed with the resulting error message.

Rather than running the SETUP.EXE file over the network from the OpenInsight directory on the server itself, the resolution was to simply move the SETUP.EXE file onto the C:drive on the server and run it from there as he had full permissions to do so. It could just as easily have been moved to his workstation so long as the installer has sufficient permissions to complete the installation (create the temporary file).

If something goes wrong with any of your OpenInsight installations, please check for sufficient permissions as a first port of call. Insufficient permissions is becoming a likely cause of failure for installations and upgrades on some of the later operating systems.

Friday 2 October 2009

OpenInsight 9.x New Features Video




I have just uploaded four new videos to my YouTube Channel which explore some of the new features in OpenInsight 9.0 and 9.1.

The first two videos will provide you with a quick overview of the main new features in just under 20 minutes and the second half (another two 10 minute videos) takes a look at some of those new features using test windows using the 9.1 release.

If you find this useful, please let me know using the comments below.

Tuesday 29 September 2009

I18N round table and RUG meeting



26th October 2009 - I18N round table
The Internationalisation (I18N) round table shall be held at our Ealing offices in London. To keep the meeting moving, places will be limited to half a dozen. For this reason, please contact Martyn to check availability and to confirm the times, etc.



27th October 2009 - RUG Meeting
The next Revelation User Group (RUG) Meeting will be held at Revelation’s offices in Ealing, London during the 27th October. The doors will be open from 10:30 for tea and coffee and then we will begin the main meeting from 11:00 sharp. There will be a short lunch break and then we will resume finishing at about 15:00.

As usual, Mike Ruane will be over from the USA and during the Revelation User Group (RUG) meeting he will review the 9.x releases, touch on our plans for 9.2 and future versions and he will also be showcasing a brand new web technology, currently known internally as O4W – OpenInsight for the Web.

O4W is a fully featured online web application development environment providing developers with the fastest and easiest way to get Revelation data onto the web using latest web technologies, such as AJAX, etc. This will be the first opportunity to get an advanced look at the technology within the EMEA region and this is a must see for anyone planning, or even mildly considering, providing a web interface to their applications.

Most importantly, previous attendees have made important suggestions for inclusion in the OpenInsight toolset and many of those have made the next commercial release. The RUG is the perfect opportunity to put your OpenInsight requirements direct to the main decision maker at Revelation.

Reserve your place online now - www.revsoft.co.uk/eventregistration.htm.

Venue address:
45 St Mary's Road
Ealing
London
W5 5RG
England
tel: +44 (0) 20 8912 1000

Thursday 24 September 2009

Open OIPI report previews maximised



A couple of times recently, I have been asked how to launch the OIPI preview window maximised. I therefore thought it worthwhile to remind everyone that the INIT Set_Printer Message can be used to achieve how the window launches, amongst several other things.



There are nine main parameters, the 5th parameter handling how OIPI launches and what is displayed. The 5th parameters ‘Style’ setting consists of 6 options that you can define in your report. The options are:

  • 0 = Print to printer
  • 1 = Display PrintSetup
  • 2 = Preview normal
  • 3 = Maximized
  • 4 = Last location
  • 5 = Specific location
  • 99 = Print to printer with the WMF fix

To launch OIPI maximised you would use something like -
stat = Set_Printer("INIT", "Report 1", title, "", 1, 3)

The INIT message must be called before any printing can start as it controls the initial properties for each printing session. A full list of the properties can be found within the OpenInsight help files, by running a search for “INIT Set_Printer Message” and the help file contain a lot of useful additional information with regards to the INIT Set_Printer Message.

Tuesday 22 September 2009

I18N Round Table & RUG – Register online now.



You can now register online for the October I18N Round Table and the next RUG. The registration form can be located at http://www.revsoft.co.uk/eventregistration.htm.

More details will follow shortly.

I18N round table and RUG - Register online.




You can now register online for the I18N Round Table and the next Revelation User Group. The registration form can be found at http://www.revsoft.co.uk/eventregistration.htm.

Monday 21 September 2009

I18N round table and RUG





26/10/09 - I18N Round Table
27/10/09 - Revelation User Group


Details are currently being finalised, but I am pleased to announce that RevSoftUK will be hosting an Internationalisation (I18N) round table and a Revelation User Group meeting on Monday 26th and Tuesday 27th October respectively.

Revelation have recently seen a heightened interest in OpenInsight from clients and prospects around Europe, Russia and the Middle East, many of which require support throughout the product for special characters. Whilst a lot of work has already been undertaken, Revelation appreciate that the subject is complex and wide reaching.

For this reason, a very special I18N round table is being hosted on the afternoon of the 26th October. This is the perfect open discussion forum for anyone working with (or needing to work with) special characters. Mike Ruane and Carl Pates will be in attendance to share their current I18N support ideas and they will be interested to hear your ideas on those plans and also be fully understand your specific requirements.

This is a unique opportunity to influence the future direction of OpenInsight and a must for any developer or user working with special characters.

The following day (27th October) will see the next Revelation User Group (RUG) taking place. The full agenda is yet to be confirmed, but Chaired by Mike Ruane, I anticipate that attendees will hear an update on how the company is doing, plans for 9.2 and later and also an overview of the 9.x releases. If for nothing else, this is a must attend for anyone developing with OpenInsight or ARev as it is your opportunity to voice your requirements from the product. Following each RUG recently, the majority of the suggestions and needs of attendees have found their way into the product – you are also pretty much guaranteed to learn something about the product that you did not know before and that will make your life just that little bit easier.

Both events will be based somewhere in London and I will post further details about the times, venues, etc. as they are finalised.

For now, please be sure to block these two important dates in your diary and please drop me a line to reserve your place and help me to better estimate the numbers to cater for.

Tuesday 15 September 2009

RevDotNet QSG video



A couple of new YouTube videos have just been added to the RevSoftUK video library. In addition, a new YouTube Channel has been created bringing all of my RevSoftUK OpenInsight videos together.

The two latest videos are a representation of Revelation’s RevDotNet Quick Start Guide. Split over two videos, the first consists of a presentation that looks at using RevDotNet and a closer look at the API itself. The second video explores the process of using a Calendar .NET control in an OpenInsight 9.1 form.

These videos take a while to put together and I am therefore interested to know whether you find these videos useful or not. For this reason, I have included a poll on the blog and I will be very grateful if you could take a couple of moments to cast your vote. Please also use the comments below this posting to suggest any future topics for videos that you might be interested in.

Friday 11 September 2009

Did you know - Knowledge Base



Hopefully this will simply serve as a reminder, but just in case you’d forgotten (or never got round to taking a look) the Knowledge Base section http://www.revelation.com/ is just one of several valuable developer resources that Revelation makes available to its worldwide community of developers.

The knowledge base is updated regularly with insightful articles on the use and behaviour of Revelation’s products and it’s worth making a monthly to-do task to check it for new information.

Some recent postings are:

Thursday 10 September 2009

OI and .NET – but how?



OpenInsight version 9.1 has seen two new features to enhance OpenInsight’s integration with .NET. However, following the release has come a number of questions from developers asking which should be used and then how that technology should be implemented.

Bryan Shumsky has addressed this in his discussion page on the subject which also links to the two Quick Start Guides covering NetOI and RevDotNet. This page has now been added to the EMEA web site along with links to the two Quick Start Guides. The main page can be found at http://www.revsoft.co.uk/dotnet.htm.

If you are not yet using OpenInsight version 9.1 and you would like to check out these two great new features, a 30 day evaluation of 9.1 is now available from http://www.revsoft.co.uk/evalmain.htm.

Wednesday 2 September 2009

OpenInsight 9.1 - Where do I start??



Yesterday I said to watch the blog for further details with regard to the new functionality in version 9.1, then later I downloaded and reviewed the 9.1 readme and wow, there is much ,much more than I had anticipated. This posting is therefore very much a touch of the highlights and I suggest that you review the full readme for full details – email me if you are not a WORKS subscriber and would like a copy of the readme to review.

One of the main new features to immediately become apparent is the enhanced support for the .NET framework. This new release includes two key methodologies for integrating OpenInsight with .NET and they include NetOI and RevDotNet. The NetOI .NET assembly enables developers to code entirely in Visual Studio and to develop a Windows application that utilises OpenInsight as its data source. RevDotNet is a set of API calls made from within OpenInsight to a .NET control. In addition, Revelation have provided a DOTNET EXPLORER window that enables developers to crack open and explore a .NET control.

In addition, The Basic+ commands for working with .Net assemblies have been modified. These include STARTDOTNET, SET_PROPERTY.NET, GET_PROPERTY.NET, GET_INFO.NET, EVENTS.NET, SEND_MESSAGE.NET, CREATE_CLASS.NET, FREE_CLASS.NET, CREATEINTERNALOBJECT.NET, and PARSEDOTNET.

The new release also includes the ability to send a fax from within OpenInsight using the standard Windows Fax Server that is now included in Windows XP, Vista and Server 2003 and Server 2008. In addition, RTI_CDOMAIL enables an email to be sent from within OpenInsight using an authenticated login and or SSL.

RTI_TASK_SCHEDULER has been introduced in this release, providing an OpenInsight front end to the Windows control panel scheduled tasks. Along with the Engine Server, this can then be used with the new RTI_INDEXER_CONFIG routine to schedule indexing. OERUN.exe also uses the RTI_TASK_SCEDULER and it is intended for this to be run from the Windows task scheduler, but it can just as easily be called from a batch file as required.

The RTI_CreateGUID routine enables a GUID to be generated without using locking and provide developers with a nice way to obtain unique keys and other unique identifiers.

For those of you who need to validate passwords, credit cards or Social Security Numbers without storing those details, RTI_MD5 has been created.

At the last UK RUG, Mike spoke about support for JSON within OpenInsight and this release sees a new routine called RTI_JSON which allows your to generate JSON formatted data. This is especially useful for anyone involved with custom web programming using AJAX techniques. Revelation have included an example (RTI_RSS) that shows how RSS feeds can be read in JSON format.

Another feature of the RUG was the Code Templates and these too find there way into the new release. As many OpenInsight teams grow and organisations looks for consistency within their programs, this new feature enables code templates to be created and saved for future use. These can be used for countless purposes, but one of the main ones will be to prompt developers for consistent opening comments that include a description of what the program does, who initially authored the code and on what date and details of any subsequent modifications. These code templates are stored in the System Editor ++ and a handful of examples templates are included with the 9.1 release.

Many of the new features in 9.1 have been lead by OpenInsight developers through your feedback, comments, suggestions, etc. Many of you have requested an ability to obtain a network user’s name and this is now facilitated trough the use of RTI_GETNETWORKUSERNAME.

I could continue for sometime yet as just about every part of OpenInsight has seen some change, turning what was expected to be a small patch release into another major release. For example, the maximum number of controls on a form has been more than doubled to 2048, ARev32 features eight notable enhancements as a result of a growing number of ARev conversions, WebOI sees a handful of changes and CTO includes the ability to create macros for use with the CTO Child and Standalone forms.

However, I’ll finish up with yet another couple of customer driven enhancements;

The first is the ComboBox Populator which has been enhanced to support a SORTBY tag. This now enables data in a ComboBox to be sorted as ascending left or right and descending left or right. Also, additional ‘literal items’ can be added to the list and they will appear at the top of the dropdown.

I am frequently asked for assistance with modernising the look of the user interface. Revelation have provided two such features in version 9.1. The first of which is the ability to add icons and text separators in your application’s menus – both the main menu and also the context menu and the two menu designers have been modified accordingly to make the process of adding icons and text separators as simple as possible.

Secondly, a new set of FOCUSCELL properties have been added. I’ll leave you to review the readme and OpenInsight help system for complete details, but to summarise, these new properties enable developers to take far more control over a specific EditTable cell. For instance a specific font can now be set for a cell, as can specific colours be set for the foreground and background colour of the cell that has focus. In addition, the border of the cell can be manipulated to change its line style and thickness. A new page and tab in the Database Manager have been added to the Environment Settings window and these allow the developer to set default behaviours for the application’s forms background gradient colours, EditTable FocusCell settings and Graphical Menu settings.

I personally think that this, along with version 9.0, is an awesome release and I’d like to express my thanks and admiration to everyone involved with the development of the 9.x releases. Roll on version 9.2!

Tuesday 1 September 2009

OpenInsight 9.1 Upgrade now available!



I am pleased to announce the release of OpenInsight version 9.1 and which is now available from the WORKS area on www.revelation.com. This is the latest version of Revelation Software’s flagship product and it takes the usual leaps forward in enhancements.

I will cover some of the main enhancements in another blog posting over the next couple of days, but those of you who have been eagerly waiting for the release need wait no longer.

Please note that this upgrade can only be applied to OpenInsight version 9.0 and you will need one of the new 5x5 authorisation keys from Revelation before you can install the upgrade. This can be requested using the OpenInsight 9.1 Upgrade Request Form in the download area.

Remember, if you have previously received an authorization code when you upgraded to a prior version of OpenInsight, you do not need to re-upload your Oengine.dll. However, if you have never applied for an authorization code, you will be required to upload the Oengine.dll for the site you are upgrading. You will automatically receive an email with the authorization code after the Request has been sent.

Thursday 27 August 2009

Launching OI tools from code




Did you know that from OpenInsight version 7.0 onwards, Revelation have enabled you to launch OpenInsight tools from within BASIC+ code. This is achieved through the use of the RUNTOOL message which handles all of the details with regards to building the correct command line for launching the tools. The calling sequence for the message is:

Send_Message("SYSTEM", "RUNTOOL", WINDOW, TOOL.NUMBER, TOOL.COMMAND)

In the above command WINDOW is the name of the active window that is initiating the call. TOOL.NUMBER is the number associated with the OpenInsight tools, for example the Form Designer is 1 and you would use 2 for the System Editor. TOOL.NUMBER is the command line options that are used by the tool to open a specific entity.

Examples are:
* Start up the Form Designer.
Send_Message("SYSTEM", "RUNTOOL", "", 1)
* Invoke the System Editor and open the BALANCED stored procedure.
Send_Message("SYSTEM", "RUNTOOL", @WINDOW, 2, "/TN=SYSPROG*STPROC**BALANCED")


I’d like to thank my colleagues at Sprezzatura for providing the content of this posting.

Monday 17 August 2009

A neat Bar Code solution.





The question of using bar code readers from within OpenInsight applications comes up from time to time and the solutions that people look at and choose vary widely. However, Ed Keeman from Van Der Laan in the Netherlands, recently told me about a really neat solution using a windows CE device with a scanner and WiFi connection.
The device shown above was sent with Ed’s email to me. It shows a Datalogic Memor handheld bar code scanning device running Windows CE. The device ships with a RDP client that enables the device to run OpenInsight in a terminal session.
Ed told me that they have run some tests and the system looks very good. All being well, they plan to use five or more of these devices to enhance processes within their warehouse.

Monday 10 August 2009

New Edit Table Styles




Did you know that OpenInsight release 9.1 includes a form and stored procedure called TEST_NEW_EDITTABLE_STYLES. This test form provides examples for programming the new edit table styles and the associated stored procedure has all of the code exposed for developers to review how things are done.

Some of the examples included in the test form include:

  1. Options button within a cell that calls the options event for the edit table control.
  2. Using vertical styles.
  3. Forcing uppercase in rows.
  4. Multiline processing.
  5. Including drop down controls in cells, columns and rows.
  6. Including drop down edit controls in columns.
  7. Using a Multi-Line Header.
  8. How to change the test in the row buttons (all buttons and also only some buttons).

The test form can be run from the Application Manager or the Form Designer in the normal way. The accompanying stored procedure can be viewed using the System Editor by opening the TEST_NEW_ET_STYLES stored procedure, it too can be opened from the Application Manager window.

Thursday 6 August 2009

OI System Error codes




OpenInsight has a large number of system error codes that are produced from time to time when a problem occurs. These error codes are grouped into 17 categories with the first part of the error message identifying the category and the remaineder being some detail about the error.

For instance, there have been six error messages introduced for the Socket functionality – SOCK101 through SOCK 106.

All of these error messages can be found in the REVERROR.DAT file and which is found in your main OpenInsight folder. For ease of reference this list can also be found on http://www.revsoft.co.uk/devcodes.htm. Overnight, this list was updated to include three new/missing error codes and also the error codes for SOCK, PING and EV were added as three new sections linked from the above web page.

WORKS subscribers can get additional assistance with regards to these error messages as needed, by submitting the relevant details to our support team via the dedicated support issue submission form. In addition, there are a couple of pages dedicated to the FS231 and FS472 errors, being common errors produced whilst configuring the Revelation network products.

Wednesday 5 August 2009

Q4 '09 Roadshows




With the world conference scheduled for April 2010, Revelation are planning a series of road shows to meet developers and users prior to the end of the year and ahead of the main conference. These road shows will take place across the USA and in England and Australia during the last quarter of 2009. In order to choose the best cities to host the shows, Revelation are currently seeking your opinion as to which cities should host these one day events.

The agendas for the road shows are yet to be set, but topics that will no doubt be on the agenda include an update on how Revelation is doing and plans for the future, a look at the new features and enhancements released in OpenInsight 9.1 and discussion about plans for the 9.2 release.

People often ask me what they are missing in OpenInsight since the last release, how they can get more productivity from the toolset and how they can make better use of the new and emerging technologies that OpenInsight supports. These road shows are the perfect way for you to keep abreast of OpenInsight’s enhancements, discuss plans for future enhancements and to have your say about what your business needs in OpenInsight. Along with the world conference, these road shows really are a must attend event for anyone developing with OpenInsight or considering an ARev32 conversion.

Revelation value your opinion on the choice on venue and your selections will be taken into account as the final venues are set and booked. It is intended that the final set of city selections will be announced in the September newsletter, so please go to the City Voting Page on the US web site as soon as possible to make your voice heard.

Tuesday 4 August 2009

Reauth.exe & Netdrv.exe Issues




Revelation have recently received a number of support calls and emails with regards to the reauth.exe and netdrv.exe programs failing. The reauth.exe file was introduced with OpenInsight version 8.0.3 and it is used to add additional users to an OpenInsight system and to also reset the license expiry date for Developer Class/Network User licenses. The netdrv.exe program has been around for a long time and it is used to set and change the network driver.

Two of the most common error messages that are being reported are:

  1. “Authorization failed. Please contact Revelation software or you vendor for additional support.”
    This issue is primarily produced when a user is prompted for, and enters, a new 5x5 authorisation key. It is a result of the reauth.exe file failing to run owing to a file still being is use.
  2. “Opening of the file failed. The process of changing drivers cannot be continued.”
    This issue is reported during the changing of the network driver using NETDRV.EXE. Again, this is a result of a file still being in use.

These programs require single user access to the entire OpenInsight system and for this reason ALL users must be logged out of the OpenInsight application and ALL services must be stopped, as they might well be using a user count or have files locked. In every case where a support issue has been raised, the problem was found to be an active OpenInsight session which was keeping the system locked. This situation can arise for several reasons, the two main reasons being a workstation with an open session and a hung engine that is still running in memory.

The obvious resolution to this issue is to ensure that all users are out of the system and all services are fully closed down before running the reauth.exe program – the UD 4.6 can be useful for this as it reports all locks on the system and provides Administrators with a way to release those locks gracefully. However, Revelation have released a script to automate the process of closing all connected sessions, killing running oinsight.exe programs and stopping the service. This script is a little overkill, but it is designed to be a “when all else fails” solution.

The script and further details can be found at Troubleshooting REVAUTH.EXE, NETDRV.EXE and OENGINE;DLL Upgrades.

Monday 3 August 2009

Back and ready to post.





Thank you to those of you that have prompted me recently about the blog postings going a little quiet over recent weeks - it is nice to know that the reduced activity was noticed and that the blog is still useful to some of you :-).
I’m now back from a week by the Red Sea (some great snorkelling over the reefs) and once I’m caught up I’ll begin catching up on Revelation news and other postings – watch this space.

Tuesday 21 July 2009

A new feature for 9.2





Revelation US have just announced that they are in the process of developing a brand new web reporting tool and development toolkit to go "hand in hand" with WebOI.

The OpenInsight for Web (O4W) Development Toolkit makes it possible for OpenInsight developers with limited or no HTML/XML/javascript experience to develop feature rich web pages. O4W is designed to work the way OpenInsight developers think, taking advantage of the skills and knowledge they already have. While users with more web development experience can use O4W's advanced features, all developers can create modern web applications (using javascript, XHTML, and AJAX) through O4W's APIs. The screen shot tied to this posting is an example of a web page generated using the O4W Reporting tool. With the Reporting tool, developers can create reports that contain menus, collector Windows, drill down to details, sortable columns and export to PDF or CSV.

The OpenInsight for Web (O4W) Development Toolkit is scheduled to be included in OpenInsight Release 9.2.

Monday 20 July 2009

OpenInsight's .NET Explorer




It would seem that .NET integration is back on the hotlist again judging from a few calls that I have had from some of you recently. Whilst requirements vary, I thought it timely to touch on a new window that is included in version 9.1, entitled the .NET Explorer.

The .NET Explorer enables you to browse for a .NET assembly and then choose one of the Classes located within that assembly. Once selected, OpenInsight then interrogates the Class to expose pretty much everything that you are likely to need to interface to that class from within OpenInsight.

There are six tabs of information that OpenInsight extracts for you. These include the classes properties, methods, fields, events and interfaces. The sixth tab then shows a representation of the default .NET class (as applicable) along with it’s properties and values.

There is too much information to run through in this posting, but I will be happy to show anyone this useful window via a WebEx session – just drop me an email and I’ll schedule a mutually convenient time.

Wednesday 15 July 2009

RevSoft UK - Support Issue Submissions




Those of you that have recently used RevUK’s support services will have experienced the allocation of a unique support issue tracking number. This number is used exclusively throughout the life of the issue to monitor its progress to closure and to maintain a complete audit of email conversations, advice and results. Furthermore, it ensures that any members of the support team can pick up the incident and contribute wherever they are in the world and at any time.

To ensure that all of RevUK’s support and aftersales care staff are aware of your support issue and that you get as quick a response as possible, all issues are initially submitted using the dedicated support issue submission form on the ww.revsoft.co.uk web site.

As of this morning, all support requests submitted through this support form will be automatically logged into Sprezzatura’s (the support arm of RevUK) support tracking system and you will receive an automated email reply with your unique support ticket number with your own one line support issue description to make tracking and identification as simple as possible. Please be sure to use this subject line and the dedicated support email address when responding to or following up on the case.

If you are not currently supported though OpenInsight WORKS or another of the support options designed to cover any Revelation product, please contact sales@revsoft.co.uk to discuss your needs and ensure that your organisation maintains a solid support safety net.

Monday 13 July 2009

Sending a Fax from OI's Basic+




Back in April, I mentioned that version 9.0.1 would include a new function (RTI_SENDFAX) that provides OpenInsight developers with the ability to send a fax directly from within OpenInsight (from Basic+ to be precise) using the standard Windows Fax Server that is included in Windows XP, Vista, Server 2003 and Server 2008.

Revelation have recently released an example of how to use this new function and it is copied below.

0001 Declare Function RTI_SendFax
0002 ReceiverFax = "+44 123 4567 8910"
0003 ReceiverName = "Bill Smith"
0004 Subject = "A Fax from OpenInsight's "
0005 Subject:= "RTI_SendFax"
0006 Note = "This is a test fax" : @vm
0007 Note:= "from the" : @vm :
0008 Note:= "RTI_Sendfax command"
0009 CoverPage = ""
0010 HostFile = ""
0011 ItemName = "c:\revdotnet.txt"
0012 SenderName = ""
0013 SenderEmail = me@myemailaddress.com
0014 SenderFax = "01234 567891"
0015 FaxServer = ""
0016 SendFax_Status = ""
0017 JobID = RTI_SendFax(ReceiverFax, ReceiverName,
Subject, Note, CoverPage, HostFile, ItemName,
SenderName, SenderEmail, SenderFax, FaxServer,
SendFax_Status)
0018 If jobId Else
0019 * Error Handling
0020 end

Friday 26 June 2009

Configuring OpenInsight 9.0 for 64 bit Vista

In order to run OpenInsight version 9.x on 64-bit versions of Vista, some additional configuration of the default OpenInsight needs to be addressed. These changes should be made only following a successful installation of OpenInsight. The guidelines assume that you have a fresh installation of 64-bit Vista (not one of the Home editions) and also a fresh installation of OpenInsight version 9.0 or later. Depending on your chosen User Account Control settings in Vista, these may not all apply to you.

  • 32-Bit Java RuntimeWebOI and CTO both require a Java run time to run. For compatibility reasons, you should download and install the latest 32-bit which is available from JRE (Java Runtime Environment).
  • Alternative Registry LocationAs well as the operating system’s usual 64-bit registry entries, 64-bit Vista also maintains a separate list of 32-bit registry keys for the purposes of maintaining compatibility with 32-bit applications. As far as OpenInsight is concerned, these 32-bit registry settings are maintained under the ‘HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\RevSoft’ registry branch and all registry changes for OpenInsight should be completed under this branch.

    The registry settings for SYSPROG are:

    [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\RevSoft\OECGI2]
    "UserName"="SYSPROG"
    "UserPassword"="SYSPROG"
    "ApplicationName"="SYSPROG"
    "ServerURL"="localhost"
    "ServerPort"="8088"
    "ProcedureName"="RUN_OECGI_REQUEST"
    "EngineName"=""


    The registry is not an area that should be played with lightly and for this reason Revelation have created an updated registry file to assist in the configuration of OECGI2. The file can be downloaded from the main Revelation web site at http://www.revelation.com/knowledge.nsf/07dbcbabb6b3e379852566f50064cf25/88e6dbc0988dec9385257566007831c5/$FILE/oecgi2%20vista64.reg. This file should be used in place of the OECGI2.reg that ships with OpenInsight 9.0.

Please also be sure to review and follow the OpenInsight 9.0 Workstation Installation Notes that now apply to the installation of OpenInsight on all versions of Windows.

Thursday 25 June 2009

396% reduction in disk utilisation!

One of the hottest IT topics that I am continuously asked about, is that of performance and reducing the load on system resources. It was therefore nice to hear from one of our UK clients who has achieved some stunning results.

Following the upgrade of an application server to a new one with Solid State Drives and using the Universal Driver 4.5 to split the data over two physical volumes, a leading financial institution in the UK recently reported “… Disk utilisation down from averaging at 400% down to 4% .. SSD's are awesome for LH.. the low latency really helps.” This is a large OpenInsight system that is vital to the business and which is in daily use by several hundred concurrent users.

Whilst I don’t have any Solid States Drives for sale, I do have the new Universal Driver 4.6 and I’ll be happy to talk to anyone running an older Revelation Network Product about the benefits of the Universal Driver. In addition, I’ll forward a white paper to you which takes a look at splitting your data onto a different location.

Monday 22 June 2009

Revelation Releases Universal Driver 4.6

Despite a couple of premature announcements on the release of the Universal Driver 4.6 recently, I am now pleased to formally announce that the latest version of the popular Universal Driver is now available and, yes, I do have both full installation and upgrade files available.

The new version features a brand new installer and support for large key sizes and large records has also been greatly enhanced. There are an increasing number of occasions where more intelligence is being built into record keys and parts of the system sometimes handle the keys correctly and in other parts it treats them as a bug and this results in false errors being reported. This issue is addressed in this release.

However, this new version will not support unlimited length record keys. Record keys can now be a maximum of 512 characters long. Any keys that exceed this limit will now be ‘illegal’ and applications will be unable to either read or write them. The server event log will report Linear Hash Error 1016 for this condition. Since this will make the records unreadable, they will be treated as though there is a ‘group format error’ (GFE) in any table that contains them. For this reason, the Database Manager tools in OpenInsight 9.1 have been updated to report the errors (LH Verify) and the ‘Fix’ option has been enhanced to copy them to a new table called DUMP_FIX_SAVE.

Furthermore, there is a more critical fix to address the issue where the Fix GFE option on the current ‘Verify LH’ menu silently considers any records with keys greater than 50 characters long to be GFE’s. Anyone running the ‘Fix GFE’ option will lose any records that have keys longer than 50 characters. As a result of this issue, an RDK containing a FIX_LH routine is being included with the UD 4.6 release. This updated routine will remove the ’50-character-throwaway’ functionality and replaces it with the new ‘512-character-save’ functionality.

In addition to all of the above, the Universal Driver 4.6 now provides backwards compatibility with all previous versions of Linear Hash files, something that was lost from the Universal Driver 3.0 onwards. Plus, the client driver’s (not the service) internal file handle management has been enhanced for improved handling of open tables and the Universal Driver can now manage over 300 open and active tables from a single client – although the reasonable design of such an application would not be recommended.

The Universal Driver 4.6 is fully supported on the following servers: Windows 2000 SP1 and later, both 32-bit and 64-bit Windows 2003 SP1 and above and 32-bit Windows 2008. Please note that Novell and Linux servers are not supported at the present time. As with the earlier Universal Drivers, Windows 95/98 workstations are not supported, leaving Windows NT, 2000, XP and Vista Business or Ultimate as deployment options. The Universal Driver 4.6 currently supports ARev 3.12 and OpenInsight version 4.1 or later – 16-bit OpenInsight is not supported.

If you are a client in the EMEA region and you have previously purchased a license for the Universal Driver 4.0 or 4.5, then you are entitled to a free of charge upgrade – drop me a email with your UD serial number and I’ll gladly forward the upgrade files to you by return of email. The files are pretty large though, so a boxed version is available - shipping charges will apply in such cases.

This is an especially good release that addresses several long standing issues that have only just come to Revelation’s attention as deployed systems become larger and larger. I would therefore urge anyone running an ARev or 32-bit OpenInsight system on a Windows server and using an older Revelation Network product, to seriously consider this a necessary upgrade.

Wednesday 17 June 2009

Revelation Users Conference 2010

Mark your calendars! The Revelation Users' Conference will be returning to the Rio All-Suite Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada. The conference dates are Tuesday, April 27th - Friday, April 30th, 2010.

Wednesday 10 June 2009

OpenInsight 9.1 is now officially in beta

Revelation were pleased to release the OpenInsight version 9.1 beta software overnight and those of you who subscribe to the WORKS beta program should have now received an email from Mike.

This is yet another major release from Revelation and one that comes hot on the heals of version 9.0 just five months ago. This release sees over 4,000 new and enhanced items, many of which are user request driven. Just some of the highlights include better .Net functionality, EditTable enhancements, the inclusion of graphics in menus, Macros for ARev32 and CTO and there is much more that will be listed in the accompanying readme file.

The installation of 9.1 is considerably different from previous installations, so please be sure to review and follow the new 9.1 Installation Guide when you come to install your copy of 9.1, beta or commercial release.

Tuesday 2 June 2009

OpenInsight and Virtualisation

Just recently, I have received an increased number of telephone calls with regards to running OpenInsight on Virtual Servers (or virtual machines), for example VMware (being the most popular at the moment), Microsoft Virtual PC, etc.

In the main, there are no real technical issues that I am aware of in running OI 8.x and 9.x in these environments and there shouldn’t really be any issues as the virtualisation software ‘should’ take care of sandboxing the server instance and any communications between virtual servers, for disaster recovery etc. That said, Revelation’s testing of these environments is yet to be concluded and, for that reason alone, they remain in the ‘unsupported’ category for the moment.

However, there are OpenInsight licensing questions to be addressed, the answers to which depend greatly on the reasons for the virtualisation, and this is the primary point of this posting.

There are probably more scenarios applicable to this question than those in this article and I will post more details here as they come to light. The three usual reasons that I am asked about though, are covered below:

  1. Sandboxing
    The days of buying a new server for a new application are over and this appears to be extending to a move away from buying a dedicated application server and a separate data server. Instead, organisations are buying one large and very well resourced server that they then break up into multiple virtual servers. This enables IT staff to sandbox applications, removing the worry about one application or set of data files bumping with another and it also eases the daily backup process. However, one of the main reasons for this move is to tick the green environmental box by reducing the cost of building the server in the first place and, more importantly, in reducing the increasing and ongoing energy costs associated with running several machines compared to one machine.

    Sandboxing OpenInsight in this way is perfectly fine. You only have one instance of OpenInsight installed in one place and you are therefore operating within the license.
  2. Disaster Recovery
    Talk to anyone involved with selling virtualisation services, software or hardware and you will quickly find yourself steered into talking about disaster recovery. This appears to be one of the main reasons why IT Managers in larger organisations turn to virtualisation. Again, OpenInsight will usually behave perfectly well in such an environment as (if supported by the virtualisation solution) it is normally the virtualisation software that will handle the communications between the virtual servers to maintain a mirror or whatever the organisation requires to facilitate an automated failover solution. OpenInsight just resides in both places as per any normal installation.

    However, this scenario usually involves OpenInsight being installed in two or more locations, or a full copy of the software being copied into more than one location. Even though the system is often designed and configured to run only one copy at a time (as a cold spare) and only one is available to end users at any one time, it IS technically a violation of the OpenInsight and Universal Driver licenses. In many situations, duplicate licenses will need to be purchased from Revelation Software, regardless of what the virtualisation salesperson tells you, so I strongly recommend that you contact your usual Revelation representative for clarification on your configuration.

    That said, Revelation always recommend the Universal Driver Heavy (UDH) as the optimal resource for maintaining a disaster recovery solution for any OpenInsight system. Not least because the UDH provides real time mirroring of Linear Hash files. Whereas, technologies like Microsoft File Replication Services and Volume Shadow copy were designed for periodic replication of static documents. These technologies aren’t capable of, nor optimised to efficiently mirror frequently changing Linear Hash data. A full white paper expanding on the reasons why the UDH 4.6 should be used as the premium solution and the various configuration options will be following over the next few weeks. In the meantime, you can find out more about the UDH on our web site.
  3. Load Balancing
    The use of virtualisation for load balancing is one that I am not over familiar with, but it has come up a couple of times during discussions about OpenInsight and virtualised servers. Furthermore, the issue becomes more complicated as there seem to be many different ways of going about this. For instance, some people have spoken about setting up a system with a shared central engine with processes being spawned on other machines, whilst on other occasions people have talked about load balancing the front end servers each with their own copy of OpenInsight.

    As I understand it, in most cases the virtualisation solution maintains the virtual servers/machines on one or more physical servers and some other solution (or code) manages the inbound user request and the levels of available resources across the virtualised system. This solution then passes the request to the virtual machine with the most available resources at that time.

    This scenario, especially where front end application servers are load balanced, often requires multiple copies of OpenInsight to be running in multiple locations. In this instance, there is a clear business benefit where users are accessing (or have access to) each instance of OpenInsight. For this reason, the appropriate number of OpenInsight and Universal Driver licenses must be purchased to cover each instance on each virtual server/machine. Again, I would recommend talking to your usual Revelation representative for clarification on your configuration.

Please remember, if there is any doubt about your proposed installation – call your usual Revelation representative with specific configuration details for clarification of what licenses you will need.

Wednesday 27 May 2009

New Look Sprezz!!

As I am sure may of you will have noticed, Sprezzatura have uploaded their new look web site. Whilst more content will be added over the next few weeks, I would urge anyone involved with OpenInsight development to subscribe to their brand new Sprezzatura Tech Blog.

I have moved the Sprezzatura blog link and David’s tech blog to the top of the links on my blog. Please let me know of any other blogs that you find useful with regards to developing with Revelation and I’ll include those in the link list as well.

Tuesday 26 May 2009

How to close a Window whose WRITE event sends a CLOSE event to the form?

In this situation the Window will close properly if the user closes through the Write event. However, if the user closes using the "X" at the top right of the window, OpenInsight will prompt "Save Changes?". If the user selects 'Yes', the Close calls Write, which then calls Close again. OpenInsight will debug when Close tries to run twice.

The Solution? Just ask the window if it is closing! Use retstack to see which programs are running, if WINDOW.CLOSE is in the stack, you are already closing. The code is as follows:


0001  declare function retstack
0002  * Pre-write ... Do some stuff ...
0003  Call Forward_Event()
0004  * Post-Write ... Do some stuff ...
0005  stack = retStack()
0006  cmd = "CLOSE.WINDOW"
0007  is_closing = IndexC(stack,cmd,1)
0008  if is_closing else
0009  Call Send_Event(@window, 'CLOSE')
0010  end

Friday 22 May 2009

OpenInsight running under Windows 7

Whilst it is early days in the Windows 7 release cycle, I was pleased to learn yesterday that Revelation in the USA have already begun testing of OpenInsight 9.x with the forthcoming Universal Driver 4.6 on the current Windows 7 release candidate. These preliminary tests are proving very positive with OpenInsight showing no immediate signs of having any trouble running under the new version of Windows. More will be published to this blog as the testing continues and more information comes my way

Tuesday 19 May 2009

Jump to an insert in the new System Editor++

If you have a $Insert in a stored procedure that you are working on in the new System Editor++, you can simply shift and double click the insert to open it in a new system Editor++ tab.

Friday 15 May 2009

Jump to a script in the Form Designer

If you have a script on a control in the Form Designer, you can simply shift and double click the control to jump straight to the script, rather than having to go via the controls properties window.

Thursday 7 May 2009

JSON

Did you know that from OpenInsight version 9.0.1 you can utilise JSON from within your OpenInsight applications. During the recent RUG in London, Mike showed how easy and fast JSON is within OpenInsight using a round-trip RSS feed example. JSON is becoming more and more popular as a replacement for XML as it is smaller, faster and easier to use. This is yet another check box that you can tick on your sales proposals when asked.

“JSON (pronounced /ˈdÊ’eɪsÉ’n/, i.e., "Jason"), short for JavaScript Object Notation, is a lightweight computer data interchange format. It is a text-based, human-readable format for representing simple data structures and associative arrays (called objects).” (Source – Wikipedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JSON).

Thursday 30 April 2009

Commuter Routine Generator

Did you know that you can use the WebOI Commuter Routine Generator to create commuter routines for any OpenInsight window that is currently based on Quick Events and Scripts. The use of commuter routines is widely considered to be best practice and that leads to an easier to maintain, faster to operate and more organised application. At the present time the routine can be executed from the WebOI utility in the new IDE or from the System Monitor.

The commuter routine generator includes an option to create ‘case statement stubs’ in the commuter routine for all controls and supported events on the form. You would usually only select those that you want to include, but there might be times when you would want them all. When checking the box, OpenInsight (from version 9.0.1) will not only double check that you really want to create the empty case statement stubs along with your define stubs, but it will also notify you of how many stubs will be created so that you can make a more informed decision.

Tuesday 28 April 2009

RCL4.DLL

I am still running into developers reporting issues with OpenInsight being left running in the task manager when OpenInsight is closed. This is mostly on Vista machines, but I thought it worthwhile to include another posting here dedicated to this issue. It will not be any surprise to you that this results in some undesirable behaviour. Revelation therefore jumped on this issue very quickly and the latest RCL4.dll file resolves that issue.

Saturday 18 April 2009

Server failure at our ISP

I am aware of issues associated with several pages on the www.revsoft.co.uk and www.sprezzatura.com web sites, most noticeably with the submission of the forms, etc. This issue has come about following a server failure at our ISP and what I believe to be a less than complete restore of the sites to the new server. This issue has also left me with the inability to post changes and notifications about the issue to the sites themselves.

I apologise for any inconvenience that this might cause and I will be grateful if you could send an email to info@revsoft.co.uk or info@sprezzatura.com should you require an assistance.

Friday 17 April 2009

OpenInsight running on 64-bit Servers

Did you know that there is no need to wait for 64-bit OpenInsight to begin taking advantage of deploying to 64-bit servers, such as Windows 2008? Whilst not officially supported as formal testing continues, there are already several OpenInsight systems running on 64-bit servers.

Following a support thread with one client recently, I thought that it might be useful to post some useful information on the topic, even though this is in the WORKS forum on the main Revelation web site.

There are primarily two main points to note:
  1. To run OpenInsight you will need to ensure that you include the OpenInsight registry settings in the 32-bit virtual (WOW64) registry.
  2. If you are planning on using OpenInsight’s OEngineServer service (SocketServer, OECGI2), then you must ensure that you install 32-bit Java for OpenInsight to use and not the 64-bit version, otherwise the SocketServer will fail. In the recent case, this meant downgrading Java from version 6 (64-bit) to version 5 (32-bit).

Once correctly configured, OpenInsight (both desktop and web) should run without any problems. However, it is highly advisable to ensure that you are using the Universal Driver 4.5 (Windows) and a late version 8 or 9.x of OpenInsight.

In addition, there is a useful MSDN article entitled 32-bit and 64-bit Application Data in the Registry that you should refer to, as well as searching for ‘32-bit applications 64-bit server’ in the Microsoft resource and please don’t forget to search the Revelation WORKS forum for real world help as well.

NOTE: This posting will be updated as more information is made available to me. Please also use the comments facility in this posting to post your hints tips and experiences with configuring OpenInsight on 64-bit machines. Please remember to include your version of OI.

Thursday 16 April 2009

Drag & Drop – Windows files

Did you know that by using drag & drop and a simple OLE control, you can easily enable a user to drag any file into your application and then display that file from within your OpenInsight application. Obviously the users machine needs to know how to handle the file (you will need Word installed to display a .doc or .docx file), but you can easily allow users to drag a .pdf, MS Word, Notepad, text file, html page, etc. onto a form and display the content. In addition, application files like MS Excel 2003 spreadsheets can be displayed (with edit capabilities) from within your OpenInsight application.

Images can also be dragged into an OpenInsight application and displayed on a form. In this instance a simple bitmap control and edit line is used. Furthermore, with a few lines of code, you can enable your users to drag the contents of an edit table cell from one cell to another or between two edit tables.

I hope to have some demonstrable examples of these techniques shortly, so please let me know if you would more details and I will be glad to set up a meeting or a WebEx meeting online.

Tuesday 14 April 2009

List Populator in version 9.0.1

Following suggestions from attendees at the recent RUG in London, Mike and his team have included some of the suggestions into the 9.0.1 release and included others for consideration for a future release. Whoever said that it’s not worth the time to attend these meetings ;)

One such suggestion came whilst Mike was showing how a list can be populated with a simple string in the items list, something that I touched on back in our February 2008 newsletter and a white paper on the subject.

There were two suggestions at the RUG. The first was for the items displayed using the technique to be sorted and the second was for items from the database to be displayed and, above those, items that were added by the developer into the controls items on the property window. Furthermore, Mike has included the option to sort the data in various ways, including descending left (DL), descending right (DR), ascending left (AL) and ascending right (AR).

Both of these customer requests should be included in the 9.0.1 release in a few weeks time.

Friday 10 April 2009

OpenInsight 9.x Workstation Installation Notes

To roll out an OpenInsight 9.x application to a workstation requires that several libraries and controls be registered by an administrative user. Some of the components will automatically install upon first use if the local user has workstation administrator access. Since many organizations do not provide users local administrator rights to the workstation some manual configuration is required. Read on.

Thursday 9 April 2009

OpenInsight 9.0.1 Due to Be Released

Revelation US recently announced that OpenInsight 9.0.1 is scheduled to be released later this month. This release will include the usual round of bug fixes as well as some really useful new functionality.

Some of the new components are:

  • The ability to send a fax from OpenInsight using the standard Windows Fax Server (included in XP, Vista, Server 2003 and Server 2008). The new function is RTI_SENDFAX
  • The ability to send an email using SSL. The new function is RTI_CDOMAIL
    The ability to create macros for use with the CTO_CHILD_FORM and CTO_STANDALONE_FORM. Ten (10) macros can be defined for each User within an Application.
  • The creation of a task scheduler that can be called as an API or as a GUI. The RTI_TASK_SCHEDULER stores task specific information (including the details needed to connect to an Engine Server) for each application in SYSENV. It also creates and deletes Windows Task Scheduler entries based on the information stored in the task schedule record.
  • The ability to process system indexing utilizing the Engine Server. RTI_INDEXER_CONFIG is a front end to schedule indexing utilizing the RTI_TASK_SCHEDULER and the Engine Server.
  • The ability to create code templates in the System Editor++.
  • EDITTABLE focus cell enhancements that make it easier to navigate through an edit table either on a per form or application basis.
  • The ability to insert graphics and textual separators within OpenInsight menus. An enhancement over the last few days sees this now supported in Vista as well as Windows 2000 and XP.